Hershey World, Pennsylvania

One place we had never been, but always wanted to visit, was Hershey, PA. It was a mere 3 hour drive from my mom's place so we decided to go for it. I will warn you, it is a money pit, but all in all, we liked it a lot. It was the kids favorite part of the whole vacation and interesting for the grown ups also. There are two parts of Hershey, Hershey Park and Hershey World. Hershey Park is an amusement/water park. Tickets are $60/person to get in so we decided to skip this. The second is Hershey World. It is free to get into Hershey World and take the factory tour. There are other attractions that you have to pay to do. We decided on the Make Your Own Chocolate Bar Experience for the kids and the Trolley Tour around the city for everyone. They were both good choices. Other things to choose from are the Hershey 3D movie and a Chocolate Tasting Experience. You can also create your own dessert and box Hershey Kisses. We took a lot of pictures here, hope you enjoy.

We started the day off with the chocolate factory tour ride and the singing cows. The kids did this several times and they said it wasn't because they got free chocolate at the end.

For $29.95 you can buy the world's largest chocolate bar. We decided we would just take a picture for free.

Jackson and Juliana heading into the make your own chocolate bar experience. They really enjoyed this and made milk chocolate bars with semi sweet chocolate inside. They designed their packages and ate every last bite on the airplane home.

They sure do have good chocolate chip cookies and double chocolate chip cookies at Hershey World. Yummy treat before the trolley.

All aboard the Hershey Trolley!

All the lights in downtown have Hershey Kisses shades. They alternate between wrapped and unwrapped.

The oldest chcolate factory in America. Milton Hershey actually failed 3 times in chocolate before getting his start in caramel. That became successful for him and he then decided to try chocolate one last time, with milk. It was a hit and the rest is history.

Mr. Hershey's mansion.

Hershey Cocoa bushes.

Mr. Hershey wanted his executives to be close enough to walk to work. So, he would sell them a plot of land for $1 and build them a mansion so they would be close to their family. When they retired/died, the house and land would go back to the Hershey trust. I think that's an excellent benefit for employees.

The world's largest chocolate factory.

As you can see from Jackson's face, the kids loved the trolley ride. There were actors telling the story and pointing out things along the way. It was fun.

Posing with the characters during lunch. Jackson was ecstatic, Juliana had to be bribed.

Jackson went up and gave the chocolate dudes five before his picture. He was so happy.

This attraction was free, with the option to buy the kisses you packaged with a picture of yourself on the package. The kids enjoyed the experience and were a little bummed that we didn't buy the item at the end.